Speeding up Intel® AMT IDE-Redirection with a 2-stage boot process

This is a computer translation of the original content. It is provided for general information only and should not be relied upon as complete or accurate.

Problem: IDE-Redirection with large ISO is very slow

If you are managing Intel AMT clients and have used the IDE-Redirection feature, you have probably experienced how long it can take to boot a large ISO across the network. You have also probably noticed that there is no way to speed up the connection even though your network is very fast. The reason for this is that for both KVM and SOL/IDER connections, AMT connects at a 10 Mb speed in order to conserve power. Once it makes the initial connection, it never renegotiates the speed and there is nothing you can do to override the established connection. Once the session is completed, the speed is renegotiated. If you try to change the connection you might get an error that looks like this:

kernel: em0: Media change is blocked due to SOL/IDER session

Solution: Implement the 2-Stage boot process

A great work-around for this is to implement a 2-Stage boot process. The 2-Stage boot process uses a special ISO which boots the first ISO (6MB) using the IDE-R channel but then switches to the ethernet channel to boot to another selected ISO.

You can view a video/demo of this process here. Note that you will need to create an account in order to view this video. You can also download the ISO here.